From Dream to Reality – My Six-Month Plan to Becoming a Writer

Ten years ago I had just begun an undergraduate degree at Oxford in Mathematics. My days were spent solving differential equations and making linear algebra summary pages.

So if you’d said then that in ten years time I would be writing this blog post on publishing my debut novel Puzzle Girl I would probably have turned around to see if you were talking to somebody else.

If you’d told me five years ago, I might have believed you. Or at least hoped.

Five years ago, having graduated with a 2:1, I found myself working in London in a job that regularly required me to work into the early hours of the morning. It was tough but I was learning a lot. But one phone call changed everything. It was from my mum. She had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, the silent killer.

I was finding it hard to deal with the situation and my boyfriend (now husband) suggested I get a hobby, something that could act as an escape. I’ve always loved learning and so I went onto the Oxford Continuing Education website. I signed up for the ten-week online Writing Lives course before I could stop myself. To my surprise not only did I enjoy it but my tutor gave me positive feedback on my assignments.

After the course, I found myself wondering if one day I could write a novel. Writing a book was something I remember dreaming about when I was a child but fell by the wayside when maths emerged as my strongest subject at school.

That Christmas I bought my first copy of Writers’ Forum magazine. I was engrossed for hours. When I read the winning three short stories from their monthly competition I felt the urge to write.

My mum’s condition was getting worse and I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. After doing the sums, I decided to quit my job and take six months off work. I was lucky I could afford to. Looking back, I’m not sure how I would have coped if I hadn’t been able to do this. I knew my mum wouldn’t want me to take six months out of my career just to look after her so I took the opportunity to see if I could make a go of my writing. I set myself three goals. In six months I wanted to:

1. Write the first draft of a novel (Puzzle Girl).
2. Have a short story published.
3. Still enjoy writing (this was the most important goal).

If I could achieve these three goals I could make my city-career break permanent.

At the start of the six months I had the spark of the idea for Puzzle Girl. I have always loved Sophie Kinsella’s novels and I wanted to give writing a romantic comedy a try. The problem was I didn’t know where to start. So what did I do? I read and read and then read some more. Armed with a few editions of Writers’ Forum, several books on how to write a novel and the latest Writers & Artists, I set about my mission.

Within a month I started sending my short stories to Writers’ Forum and I would edit them based on the critiques. Meanwhile the idea for Puzzle Girl had gone from a few scribbles to a full-blown chapter outline. I was writing as much as I could, sometimes doing thousands of words in a day.

Half way through my six-month plan, I went to a networking event and met the editor of SLiNK magazine. The magazine was just starting out and hadn’t considered having a short story before but I convinced the editor that a short story centred around fashion would be great. I went home that night and wrote The Girl in Blue and it was published shortly afterwards. Goal two achieved. But I didn’t want to stop there. By now I was sending short stories to lots of competitions and magazines.

Five months in and everything was beginning to fall into place. I had almost completed the first draft of Puzzle Girl and had bought tons of books with advice on editing – which I was certain I would be needing! Then one day an email came through from Writers’ Forum saying my short story The Flying Cow had won second prize and could I send them a picture and bio. The first thing I did was call my mum – it was her favourite short story of mine.

A couple of weeks later my mum was moved to a hospice. In our last few days together I read her some chapters of Puzzle Girl. She died before my short story was published in Writers’ Forum.

So the six months were over. They were probably the most important six months of my life. I got to spend valuable time with my mum and I also rediscovered my childhood love of writing. I had achieved all three of my goals and so I decided to follow my dream and carry on writing full-time.

Four years later and Puzzle Girl is being published by Accent Press. I know my mum would be really proud.

—

Rachael Featherstone’s debut novel Puzzle Girl is out in Spring 2017 and is dedicated to her mother.

Twenty-six-year-old Cassy Brookes thinks she has everything under control, but one disastrous morning changes all that. Stuck in a doctor’s surgery, Cassy scribbles a message in a puzzle book and when she returns for a check-up she sees someone has replied. Will finding the mystery puzzle-man be the cure to all her problems or will the truth turn out to be a bitter pill to swallow?

Found out more about Rachael on her website http://www.writerachael.com

Follow her on Twitter and Facebook:

https://twitter.com/@WRITERachael

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips